Creative Mischief - vol. 1

creative MISCHIEF

vol. 1

IT TOOK SOME TIME...AT FIRST I LIVED HIDING MYSELF, AND BEING WHAT THEY THOUGHT I HAD TO BE. WHEN I SLIPPED AND LEFT MY HIDING PLACE, THEY TOLD ME TO STOP, TOLD ME I WASN’T NORMAL, “YOU’RE NOT YOURSELF”. THEY DIDN’T KNEW I FINALLY REALIZED... I’M POWERFULL, I’M A FORCE OF NATURE. I’M NOT AFRAID, I’M MYSELF WITH THE UNIVERSE.

FALLING OUT

By Amanda Jimenez Our college days started on the same date, in different places, in early September, 2010. I woke up too early, excited for my first day of college classes. Jealous of my roommate tangled in her lavender sheets five feet away, I quietly escaped to the bathroom and silently closed the door behind my back. Faster than my hand could leave the cold door handle, I was struck by my own reflection in the medicine cabinet. I slid my socks along the tiled green floor until my nose was almost touching its new identical twin. I blinked and wished I could see what I looked like with my eyes closed. I tried again, shutting my eyelids quickly so maybe I’d catch a glimpse – nothing. Just the dark insides of my eyelids. I opened again, and looked directly into my own eyes. What’s yellow, brown, white, and bigger than my face? I joked to myself. The same eyes I have had since my youth, of course. But somehow, today, they looked different. Was it because I was starting college?

Had something changed, and I hadn’t really looked at myself since I had turned 18 last month? I knew what it really was, but I pushed my own thoughts out of my head.

I left my eyes and looked at the rest of my face. I admired my nose piercing that, if a puppy, would not have been old enough to be adopted. I wondered if Marina was getting ready for class, too. Sure, we had drifted in the past year, but we had been friends since the 7th grade. Some parts of me secretly hoped that college could be a new start for us as friends. I couldn’t wait to ask her about her first day, too.

A door slammed down the hall and I snapped out of it, realizing how lucky I had been that no one had walked into our shared bathroom and saw me studying my own face. I smiled at myself – weirdo. I turned around to face the wall-length mirror above the dual sinks. I put my hands on the cheap white counter between the sinks and looked once again at my double, and decided to attribute my pre-8 a.m. existential crisis on my lack of sleep. I took the time to primp my short brown hair with my pink flat iron, define my eyes with black eyeliner, and fake some alertness with mascara. Good enough, I concluded with my doppelgänger as I shuffled out of her line of sight. Outside of the bathroom door, I saw my wooden armoire. I knew myself though; I had no need for its French doors today. I had already laid out my blue and white striped t-shirt and denim

capris on my wooden desk chair the night before. The outfit probably didn’t help the fact that I didn’t look old enough to be attending college, but I was too excited to notice.

I tried my best to focus on my first day of school, but there was a fact that was hard to ignore: My ex-boyfriend from high school was here at school with me. Living in the same residence hall. Three floors down. We hadn’t spoken since we moved into school.

In fact, we hadn’t even acknowledged each other’s existence.

I knew that our roller-coaster of a relationship was no good for either of us. We fought constantly. We were both jealous and brought out the worst in each other. But I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t thinking about him or that I didn’t miss him. Sure, we fought a lot, but I was, very often, in the wrong. And besides, didn’t all the best couples fight? *** “I have this girl in my class who just apologizes. About everything!” Marina laughed. I smiled and watched her run her fingers through her brown hair on my computer screen. “Show me your dorm!”

“You expect me to ride the elevator up three whole flights?” I said, making her laugh. Even though it was virtual, it felt so nice to have a one-on-one conversation. It almost felt like we were best friends like we used to be.

“So how are things with…him?” she asked, avoiding his name.

“We haven’t talked,” I concluded. “We’ve hardly seen each other.”

“Good. For both of you. Keep it that way.” *** My eyes watered and began producing a stream that was landing in my brown hair.

“I don’t understand why she would say that,” I whispered, trying to avoid the inevitable onslaught of emotion that was coming. All I could see was my feet hanging over a dirty dorm floor.

His dark room made me uncomfortable – everything about it did. So uncomfortable, in fact, that I had gotten sick in it more than once. Things had never worked in the past, and even my body was telling me what was wrong, as I promptly ignored it. He was a cloud of black smoke that crept into my life and was silently choking me. The problem was that he was sweet when he wasn’t smothering me, so I kept going back for more.

“She said I was using you? What does that even mean?” I was asking, not that I was expecting an answer.

His long legs were folded up near his chest at the top of the same bed I was perched on. “I don’t know,” he said, sounding upset.

With that, my sadness quickly began to shift to anger. Why would someone who was supposed to be my best friend make such an accusation? Throughout all of the time that he and I had been dating, Marina had never liked us together and made it perfectly clear. I knew that it was time to do something about this. I began constructing a long, not-so-well-thought-out text message to Marina, essentially telling her to stay out of my life.

At first I was too proud to see it; the stupid mistake I was making out of anger.

When the message sent, I smiled. I even reveled in the fact that I had finally told her off.

But when the dust cleared and I finally saw where I was sitting and who I was sitting next to, it hit me: had I just chosen him over my best friend?

His body language suddenly changed to a strange mixture of defeated and angry – at me. “What?” I asked him.

I turned to look at him as his brown eyes changed from sympathetic to something similar to hatred. I couldn’t understand what I had done. I thought that he would be happy. We could finally have the relationship we wanted without Marina telling us that it was a bad idea. What had just changed in the past two minutes? “Well someone wouldn’t just say that someone’s being used without someone giving them that idea…”

Now I understood. He thought that I had revealed some secret to Marina, that I was some sort of heartbreaker about to move on to my next victim. Since I had never so much as broken a curfew rule in my life, the idea sounded crazy to me. We had been dating on and off for nine months, so why didn’t it sound crazy to him, too? All of a sudden, it was like he didn’t know me.

As I sat on the edge of the bed in that room that was never mine, I knew I had made a mistake. Marina wasn’t the enemy. I was sitting next to him.

And then that inevitable onslaught of emotion arrived. But instead of in the form of tears, instead, it was anger. He tried to reason, but it was too late. I had just come to the realization that I had just thrown away the best friend I had ever had under a delusion. I needed someone to blame and my mind, clouded by the self-doubt he had planted there, had picked the wrong person. I don’t remember what was said, but I know that it ended with me losing my temper and leaving his room, never to go back.

In the days and weeks following, I gradually came to the realization that I had made a huge mistake. I couldn’t eat or form intelligent thoughts anymore and every-

one would ask why I cared so much. They thought it was about him. Maybe part of it was, but it wasn’t really. He had hurt me in the past, but the pain of what I had done to Marina was much worse. And the worst part was that there was no fixing this. What I had said to her would take time for her to get over. There was a strong chance that I had permanently ruined our relationship. Six years was the longest stable relationship that I had ever had, and I just gave it up via text message. And the only thing I could think was, why? *** I tore every page from my journal that reminded me of him or her. I started fresh in its pages, beginning with the day I met Chris. Part of me was ready to start over.

Months passed and things changed, but what stayed the same was the silence between us. All of us. I would walk across the campus, hand in hand with Chris. Smiling. Slipping on ice and laughing. Getting drunk and crying in the snow together. But the next day, smiling again. Sometimes I would wonder if Marina was doing the same things as I was. I would walk through my tall Student Center, plagued with windows, and wonder what hers looked like. She and I were now living parallel lives that were once perpendicular. *** ZZZZZZZZZZ. ZZZZZZZZZZZ. I woke, disoriented. Tangled in my white and pink sheets, I came to, and realized that my phone was ringing. I opened my eyes and looked across the room. “Shit!” I whispered to myself. My roommate was about to be unhappily awoken. I snatched my phone off my computer desk that was doing double-duty as an end-table. Veronica. “Hello?” What time is it?

“Hi, sweetie,” she said. Veronica had been my friend since we were five and in kindergarten together. I was no stranger to her unexpected phone calls, but our friendship was like that. Sometimes we wouldn’t speak for months at a time, but we would always pick up where we left off. This time, though, I had been waiting on news from her for a while. She was pregnant – due in March with a baby girl.

I was in the midst of wrapping myself in a Snuggie that matched my bed sheets, so that I could venture outside of the room and speak at a normal decibel. I shivered, almost seeing my breath, even indoors. “How are you doing? Is everything okay?” I asked, quickly turning my phone to look at the time. 8:07. On my day off. Oh well.

“Yeah, everything is fine! I actually wanted to call and…what are you doing on February 6th?,” Veronica asked. I was instantly delighted.

Ooh! Baby shower, I thought. I could not wait to spoil my unborn baby friend.

“Probably nothing, why?”

“Well, Joanna is coming soon so my mom is throwing me a baby shower at home if you want to come.”

“Yes, of course I’ll be there! What time?” I was thrilled.

“11, but it’ll go until 3 or 4, so you can come whenever,” she said nonchalantly. Her events were always casual when it came to structure.

“Great, so I’ll be there at 10:55,” I teased. “I am so excited!”

I expected a goodbye, but then her tone changed. “There’s one other thing…Marina…”

“She’s gonna be there.” I sat down on a scratchy blue couch in the floor lounge. How did I not see that coming? We have all been friends since the 7th grade.

“But I really want both of you to be there,” she said, her raspy voice sighing.

It had been nearly five months since Marina and I had spoken. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how awkward things would be. I cleared my throat and made my lips form the words that my mind could not. “Of course we will. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

We are both adults and love you so much, of course we will both be there.”

I could hear the smile coming to Veronica’s face through the phone. *** Well, this should be interesting, I finished typing into my phone as I tapped “Tweet”.

Sunday, February 6th 2011 was spelled out in white at the top of my phone screen, and I shut my eyes tight to try and unsee it. Impossible. Today was the first time that I was going to be seeing or even speaking to Marina in almost five months. I was supposed to be getting ready, but I decided that continuing to lie under my sheets was a better use of my time. Staring at the white ceiling in my dorm room, I thought about everything that had changed while we were apart. I looked to my left at my small, sleeping roommate illuminated by the light coming through the curtains next to her. Her blonde hair was poking out of the top of her comforter. She was new. I had a new boyfriend. New. I was pledging a sorority. New. I had spent a Christmas completely without Marina, the first since before I met her. What would things be like after five months? Had she changed?

Would I be able to tell? Did she miss me, or was she better without me? I was still having trouble answering that question for myself. I wasn’t even sure what I was expecting out of the day. Maybe we would just cordially say “hi” and “bye” and that would be it.

Maybe we wouldn’t say anything at all. Or maybe we would pretend like nothing ever happened, and we would just pick up where we left off. That was probably the one I was hoping for.

With too much noise in my old red Chevy Cavalier, I pulled up to Veronica’s house.

Luckily, I was able to find parking on the narrow street, right in front. My stomach turned into a butterfly sanctuary as I put the car in park. Two cars ahead, I saw Marina’s mother’s blue sedan. I wriggled out of my seatbelt just enough to crack every one of my vertebrae.

Here we go. I grabbed the large pink gift bag filled with onesies from my passenger seat, and began the ascent up the four peeling, once-blue wooden stairs to the porch of her house. I drew my fist, ready to knock on the painted green door. Taking a deep breath I made contact with the wood three times. I exhaled as the door began to open. To my surprise, a very pregnant Veronica with a hug. “Hi, sweetie!” she said into my shoulder as I rested my head on her beige sweater. Her dirty blonde curly hair was back in a ponytail and her rectangular purple glasses made quite a statement. Her belly protruded to the point that her sweater did not cover all of it, which I found endearing. I smiled at her greeting, and said hello.

I walked forward toward the kitchen, hoping to find Veronica’s mother or sister for a greeting. Anybody else but Marina. “My mom ran out to get some ice. She’ll be back in a little bit! She misses you. Put your coat down!” Veronica was reading my mind.

Damnit. I turned around to face the living room, and my problems, on my left. I began to remove my gray pea coat midstride, and I walked to place it on a designated dining room chair in the corner of the room. Sitting on a loveseat at the head of the glass coffee table was Marina. Black leggings adorned her thinner-than-I-remembered legs, to be met with suede black boots. A black sweater fit her snugly, but showed off her physical progress since the last time I had seen her. My brown eyes finally met hers, which were still shrouded by the wispy brown hair that I remembered. And finally, under her small nose, I saw what almost moved me to tears in front of six other strangers in the middle of a living room: a smile. I couldn’t help but reciprocate.

I said a general hello to everyone in the room, including our mutual friend Kim, whom I had also not talked to since the incident. She had not changed much since I had last saw her – same long, wavy blonde hair with bright red highlights, lip piercings, rectangular glasses. She smiled.

The party was awkward, but not as bad as I had initially thought. We watched Veronica open presents, fawning over her in our own independent worlds, two seats away.

We ate cake, speaking to everyone else in the room but each other about how good it was. There were a few times when Marina and I became caught in the same conversation with someone else, but we would just agreeably both nod our heads and say yes. No further conversation.

As the party began to wind down and company began to leave, I stayed for a little bit longer to help clean up as I caught the beginning of a conversation that Marina started with Kim about seeing a band the week before. I knew, from secretly viewing her Facebook profile quite a few times over the past few months that she was talking about a band that she and I had loved since we had met – Panic! At the Disco. Veronica’s laptop was sitting on a snack table behind Marina’s chair, and I watched as the turned to her right to open it, presumably to show off a photo or video she had taken. “They did this new song, and it was amazing,” she was saying to Kim as she typed in the website she wanted.

She turned the computer around and placed it on her lap. If I wanted to talk to her, now would be the time. What was the worst that could happen? She wouldn’t be mean to me in front of the people still here. Finally, I turned to her, preparing myself. Somehow, the words just spilled out with no regard to what my brain was telling them to do.

“Oh, you got to go to that show? How was it?”

MOONSHINE FEVER

By Juliana Guerrero

For a second, Gema was glad for the darkness around her. Even with her onyx eyes wide open, she pretended to be on her very private world, the one inside her head. Sat on the sidewalk, she bats her eyelashes, in an attempt to find an end for the narrow and deserted street. Above her head, some lamps twinkled their lights, although as far as she knew, that could be a dream.

It wasn’t hard to believe it. Ametista had that effect; once you started to live there, sometimes was impossible to distinguish dreams from cold reality. Gema would dream vividly at least once a month, and as far as she knew, everybody has at least one person in their family who started to dream and never woke up again.

She raised up her chin and looked at the sky above her head. Gema saw the darkness being filled by multicolored stars and a discreet waning moon. The girl, in the prime of her teenager years, was dazed by how fast the stars popped up from nowhere and made the world a little less scary. Made her even forget about the curfew, and then wonder if they had curfews in dreams. Of course, they do! Nothing is different, she thought. In her world as an awake person, she would be screwed. Both ways. She could get caught and then forced to face her mother’s rage… Or she could disappear from wherever was the place she was, and never see the light of day again.

Gema liked to think of herself as a smart girl. She watched the news from time to time, and she was there when the newsreader told the entire city about the kids. Could her call them kids? They were about her age. She knew their faces, their names. Damn, they were her friends, or they used to be. Gema was not so sure, and now they could not answer her if she asked. Her only certainty was they disappeared into thin air.

Inside of her, her heart felt tight. It wasn’t fair to make everything about her, nevertheless, she had questions on her head. She couldn’t help wonder if before the mystery started, their hearts would tighten every now and then. Did they imagine a huge vacuum when they thought about their futures? Did they felt alone? Because even around so many people, Gema still felt alone every single day. Those were all old questions, yet she

would rather stick to them, than ask the newer one. Were they alive?

Not her best conduct, but see: actually, Gema wasn’t able to ask them when they were all friends. Because when they gathered, all her questions vanished from her head.

When they were younger, they had so much fun she would forget. After the terrible day, she would forget, too busy between their fights. Little arguments turned into wars. A rough speech was faced as an attack, and in the end, her friends’ silence was a proof of her victory.

Sweat dropped from the back of her neck, and she was back to reality, or at least, the closest from it. Shit, this is the dumbest dream of the whole city. Gema knew plenty about other people’s dream, all of them so real they would believe that for once, they flew with orangutans through sunsets. And there she was; alone in her dream, which apparently was about how awful the world could be, and how bitter she could get from her own actions.

The girl tried to get those oh so familiar thoughts off her head, and pay attention to where she was. Even on dreams, it was important to know where one was, otherwise they could lose themselves and sleep through life. Her curly hair stuck to her skin, glued by sweat. Ametista was boiling up as usual, living up its title as Hell City.

Everything is far too quiet. Apprehensive, Gema stood up in one spur and looked around. As she saw what was behind her, the girl went face to face with a hangar’s entrance. Tremendous by the city’s standards, the grey building was not particularly beautiful or astounding. However, it was old enough to go down any moment, and Gema knew that constructions like that were imploded long time ago, part of Ametista’s once new housing policy. She felt amused, with the image of the mayor pulling his hair out in front of a really not modern building playing repeatedly in her mind.

Her own quiet laugh was heard, and the girl recognized the sounds around her, as if invisible plugs were removed from her ears. The melody came gently and low from inside the hangar’s gate, as if it tried not to scare her.

- Ah! - Gema blurt, surprised. - A party…

Normally, Gema would avoid contact. She wasn’t cocky, and sometimes she almost believed it was impossible for her to do it right. Yet that night, in front of a almost ordinary hangar, she was okay. After all, it was her dream. As if she needed more confirmation, a unusual glow got her attention.Yep, I’m dreaming. Gema’s brown skin was still the same, almost pale on some places, while specially dark where the sun hit everyday.

Although that nightfall it shone like copper dust, and she felt like a mythic creature herself.

What a shitass dream, just me, here, doing nothing… The skin is nice though.., But still, I… I wanna go there…. I mean, it’s my dream, so isn’t like I’m gonna die, right? Yeah.. I’ll go there.

To say something was always quite easier than actually do it, however, for the first time in a long period, Gema did. She crossed the long sidewalk, jumped over the overgrown bushes and passed by a really steamy couple that definitely wasn’t there before.

Gema tightened her fingers around the gate knob, and hoped she did not spent the majority of her dream wandering.

I’ll make my own time, Gema thought, before she entered. *** The blast paralized her at first. Music came out the construction walls, as if bricks and mortar could create melodies. Almost dark, illumination came from sparks around her. Gema was evolved by a glowing crowd. So full, she couldn’t remember the last time she had so many people around her.

Gema shut her eyes down.

Breath…

Again…

One more time… ……………

Wasn’t easy to remind herself how to breath, she concentrated her mind on her nostrils’ moviment.

This song is actually kind of cool...

It’s my dream…

I can do it, can’t I? Obsidian eyes opened up again.

Staring at the people around her more properly, Gema made four great discoveries.

First, she did not knew anyone there; it was dark, but she was good at profiling, a curious and barely used ability. Second, they weren’t dancing, or moving, yet they do seemed to be alive. Third, the glow around her came from people’s skin; similar to her own skin, their skin shoned. But while the girl’s skin had a deep copper glow, their skin resemble the moonlight. And forth, they were hot. Not in a attractive hot way, their bodies were blazing around her.

Moonshine people.

Gema felt strangely connected to moveless, melancholics beings around her.

They aren’t treacherous, they are more like… Me. on.

She wonder if that was how her family saw her, motionless, incapable of moving

Carefully, the girl started to move between them, trying not step on their feet. Gema did not knew where she was going, but it was her dream, she would not be threatened there.

At first hardly noticeable, a wooden door was a few meters away. Once in front of it, examine the cheap blanched door with a iron handle and how it seemed deliberately hidden.

Like an adventure, without getting hurt.

Too much breathing for a dream. She was tired of damaging herself. Still, she read books where girls found new worlds, cultures and on their last chapters, themselves.

What could live beyond that door?

Gema turned the silvery handle. *** Well, this is… Different.

Gema leaned on the door she just closed, only to find it gone.

Despite the lack of light, the girl saw herself inside of a dance’s circle. Around her, moonshine beings revolved with inhuman fluidity, their bodies responding to a growling chant.

Getting closer, closer.

Then distant.

Closer, closer.

Distant.

The girl took a deep breath. Too much respirational work for a dream. Gema wasn’t sure if she could deal with it.

And she couldn’t stop looking. Ametista citizens were so different from each other.

When she was a toddler, Gema already knew it was rude to stare at Miss Lucia’s big lilac pores. They were called manners, her mother said, and stop glaring at that guy’s body

grass.

Still, it was different.

Gema needed to close her eyes, concentrate herself, breath properly. Do what she always does. Yet, her eyes refused to close and her breathing was failing. As the moonshine people got closer, the girl’s hands started to rattle and she notice the walls approaching.

Her affinity with moonshine people was strong, so why don’t you wanna let me breath?

Silver glow shoned around her one last time.

Gema felt the air inside her lungs, to suddenly feel nothing. *** Three years before _____ Her lips were itching, she couldn’t tell if it was from their kiss or her overflowed imagination. Romance was never draw to her, however, she tried. Kids were doing it, her friends were doing it. The girl felt left behind, while any other being had already jumped in the love wagon. How hard could romance be? Gema did her best. Act like a fucking lady in love for once, and… I mean… It’s Alex, it’s not that awful.

She spent the next two months avoiding him as if he was the plague.

Five years before _____ Fireworks were heard from kilometers, her favourite part of St. John the Baptiste’s nativity. Yet, there she was; hidden under a table, her legs crossed like a small child. This is so ridiculous, I’m thirteen, why do I have to wear this? Gema was the only teenager to wear typical costumes. When the girl saw herself in the mirror, she felt pleased by the silky crimson fabric, multicolored ties and fair ornament. It was before all the laughs and mean words from mean kids.

Gema wondered where he was.

One year before _____ - What?

Her mind worked as fast it could. They had many conversations about their society, sexuality and, actually, about everything. Gema never thought he was talking about himself.

Alex looked at the ceiling, uncomfortable.

- I’m not asking you to call me Alexa, fuck… We talked about this,it’s like… Most of my life I felt like a male, and I still do, but not always… And it was always like this, with me, I mean… You know...

She knew exactly what the he meant.

Ten years before _____ They were in front of her aunt’s lake; a eight years old Alex threw a small rock at one of the many fishes, other kids screamed in joy. That was how they first met; his smile was bigger than anything Gema saw before, but that didn’t stopped her from throwing him in the lake.

One year before _____ Colossal eyes looked at her, incredulity overflowing from them. She could tell it wasn’t the answer Alex was expecting. Gema listened to her heart break when the girl realized what was expected to her. Alex was expecting her to scream, to cry, to run away.

- I love you, you know?

Wait, did I really said I love him? Oh, fuck…

- I mean, we’re bros. That’s what bros do… Like, ah… What pronouns do you prefer anyway?

Alex relieved laugh made her smile.

Four months before _____ - You can’t drink.

His eyes were red and she knew illegal drinking was their smallest problem.

- You still can’t drink…

- Oh, really? And what will you do to stop me?

Gema avoided his eyes. The street was deserted, it was the second week of July, the coldest week of the year. Anyone with a good sense of self preservation was inside of a cozy place. She looked at him again; his chestnut hair swaying with the wind.

They were seventeen. They should be worried about the NHSE, not about death.

- Please, explain to me, what you gonna do? I’ll drink whatever I want! But tell me, clear my fucking mind! What will you do?

Her vision started to blur.

- What you gonna do? Kill me? Too late, my love! I’m already dying!

Tears were colder than ice, stronger than diamonds.

Five years before _____ Gema glared at Alex in disbelief. She made sure no one would find her; yet, he was there, right in front of her. The fireworks coloured the boy’s face in explosions. Gema felt moon-sized amber eyes reading her face.

- There you are! I’ve been waiting for you, for like, years! *** It was a succession of terrible ideas. Enter this dream was a terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Force myself into isolation was a terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Did I really do that to my friends? Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. I wanna go home. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.

But where’s home? Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.

Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Who is home? Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Argh… This light… It hurts. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.

Terrible idea. Fuck.Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.

Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Stop looking at me… Stop. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.

Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.Terrible idea. Terrible idea.

Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.Terrible idea.

Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible.

*** The girl remembered when her grandmother, who smelled like freshly baked bread and daisies, sat on the side of her bed and told the story of Missing Lady, a tale every child from Ametista knew since the very beginning. As any other tale, it taught a valuable lesson to the youngers. And unlike any other bedtime story, it scared the shit out of me… But it was my favourite. Fuck.

Gema knew it by heart. The tale was about a desert princess. Powerful, kind and dominant as princesses used to be. Once she had the legal age, her mother, the Queen, let her join the army and fight the moonies. By the princess side, her childhood friend protected her where she could not see. The princess was young, and she held her friend close to her heart. One day, during a bloody battle, she lost said friend. In her fury, the heiress killed nine hundred enemy’s soldiers. When the battle was over, both sides had too much sadness to continue, and the Queen came to peace with the lunar creatures.

In disgust by her mother’s actions, the princess left her land, promising to never come back. Her bloodthirst was not satisfied, and resentment blinded the princess heart and soul. However, as the years passed by, she got older and wiser, and eventually came into peace with herself and the world. Different from what once she was, the princess decided to get back to her land. During her travel, she faced many trials with strength and humility. When she got into Queen’s Land. No one would recognize her name, or her mother’s. It was a different land, with different people. Long short story, the princess killed everybody who cared about her by erasing them from her life…

I did not kill a whole nation.

But I did erase my friends…

I erased them all.

Destiny can be funny sometimes, but this does not stop it from make you cry. Just as the love you have for your friends does not stop you from unintentionally make them disappear. Ooops. *** Gema did not want to dream anymore, although the girl knew she had to keep going. She felt something important was about to happen. She felt it on the tip of her fingers a different world sharing the same space. Yet, it did not stop her hands from trembling, or her heart to beat faster. With eyes tightly closed, Gema tried to control herself. After her third attempt to decrease all that urge to cry inside of her, she let her tears flow.

Emotions came and left.

She felt angry.

Bitter.

Ashamed.

So, so sorry.

It was the first time she cried in three years. *** Stygian eyes looked around, and found themselves at home. Gema was in her backyard, the place she spent the majority of her childhood. The ground below her feet was barren, and the cold wind messed her shaggy hair. It was july, and it was her birthday.

More precisely, her birthday night. She heard noises coming from the birthday party inside her house. The girl had fun imagining what could happen if she entered the house.

Would she find her younger self ? Or would she led to a different place? Maybe she would enter to her party, and be the only Gema there.

Nevertheless, she felt good there. It was a long and troubled dream after all. She leaned her back against the fence and let a long sigh escape.

- So‌ Do you want some?

Gema gasped cold thin air, almost choking.

And at that exact moment, my dear reader, Gema reminded why dreams are so extraordinary. How else could her be in her backyard, on the night of her eighteenth birthday, when she was already twenty one years old? How else could Alex be right by her side, offering a beer? How could she feel excruciating guilty, yet suddenly feel such peace and comfort in, she supposed to be, a nightmare?

There was so much to tell; about the time when, against all the odds, she got in one of the national colleges. About the time when she eventually found the mystic grotto, the one they discovered when they were eleven, and felt so wrong to be there alone. About how, in spite of all, they were side by side again, and even if it was a dream, she felt full of delight on behalf of Alex was finally herself.

So much to be said, yet it only took a exchange of glances for her to realize Alex knew everything. Huge, moon-sized eyes, knew about the sadness, happiness and everything in between. I missed you, she wanted to say, however, her brain chose a different way.

- I don’t drink anymore.

- Yeah, I know… But asking never hurt anyone.

Gema bit her lower lip, trying too hard to not stare. She wondered if Alex, wherever she was, would look like the redhead on her left. Breathtaking. Painfully aware of her dream’s limitation, the girl finally realized, that, for her, Alex was always the most marvelous being alive. She’s not alive… I should be full of live, she should be full of death. But look at her, how can I deny her remaining existence? And look at my life, how can I claim my right to it? Alex frowned at her, tightening huge eyes and pursing slender lips, deducing like she used to.

- Aren’t you gonna ask what I am doing here?

- What are you doing here? - Gema asked, her voice too small for her own taste.

Alex gave her a small smile.

- I came here for the party.

Ah, yes… My birthday party, the one you couldn’t attend because…

- I was already dead, yes.

Gasp.

- Obviously...

- Obviously.

She should know the other girl was capable of reading her thoughts. Gema should know many things, however, she was inexplicably in peace. The girl knew Alex could hear anything inside her head, yet, she missed talking.

Is all of this too weird?

This dream? Or… You? I don’t feel unconfortable… I miss this.

- Me. I mean, you know, I’m having these weird dreams, and they don’t stop… I felt bad, and then awful, and then terrible. But now… Fuck, it seems I’m dreaming during ages already, but right now… I think I can fix it, you know? And… Do you know that stupid texts we used to make fun of, like, love yourself and stuff, you’re beautiful… Do you know? I feel like this… I love myself, but different from those texts, I don’t…

- You don’t find yourself perfect.

Gema nodded in affirmation.

- Yeah, I love myself, but I know I’m not perfect… Look… Look what I did… But I know I can fix it, and maybe I’ll always fuck up a little, or a lot, but…

Oh, shit… I’m crying… Again.

The girl looked at Alex, ready for apologize until she saw the other girl crying along.

Cold breeze messing hair and tears. Both girls remembered when, before all the _____, sometimes, during a really emotional movie scene, they would burst into sobbing. Mako seeing Stacker Pentecost for the first time was a go to, and Gema would always start.

Laughing brought her back.

Alex’s laugh. The worst laugh, embracing herself, mouth wide open. Gema was open mouthed.

- I can’t believe you’re laughing! We’re having this - and the brown girl gestured to all around them - and then you ruined! What’s wrong with you?

Un-fucking-believable…

In Alex defense, the taller girl seemed genuinely guilty, and Gema knew she couldn’t get angry like before, not after all. She watched was the red haired girl close her eyes and controlled her breathing. Gema’s skin tingle as she felt the temperature get lower, and she knew what was about to happen. Sorrow mixed to the wind.

- This is when the serious talk start? - she asked, hoping to be wrong.

- I’m sorry... *** Alex wasn’t smiling. She was angry.

- You can’t do this.

- But this is my dream! I can spend the time I want here, and I can be with you…

Why are you saying this? I could...

Sleep through life and forget everything…

Forget what I did.

Forget what I became. *** Snow transformed the backyard in a strange and almost sympathetic christmas card.

Gema knew her time there was close to an end. Yet, she wanted to be there for just a little more, sat there, in her backyard, on her eighteenth birthday. With her best friend.

Tears ran down her face, and the dark haired girl could feel them freezing.

- Don’t tell anyone. - said the girl on her side.

- No one would believe, anyway...

The plan was simple.

I’ll walk, it’s just a walk...

- We’ll not see each other again, you know? I’ll not haunt you forever...

The brown girl kept quiet, it was a subject she tried to avoid, even not having time enough for it. Gema agreed, eyes on the snow flakes in front of her. Ametista didn’t experienced snowfalls, even on july the city was still warm enough to avoid it.

- Ah...

- Ah, definitely… But, you know… I didn’t die here, you know?

She took her eyes of the small flakes. The girl could see Alex perfectly, long eyelashes, lifted nose, enormous eyes… She could count all her freckles and the tiny pieces of her soul.

- I didn’t die on you, but now…

- Now you’ll live inside of me, but as part of me… Right? So...

She opened her mouth and waited the words to come out. They did eventually.

- So… I’ll be able to live, and you’ll be able to die… And the others… They’ll be able to live as they are entitled to… I...

- Turned them into dust… It’s a moonshine fever, actually.

Is this over?

- Actually, there’s just one more thing.

Gema couldn’t help, but smile. *** The girl was back into darkness again. Just like before, her source of light came from the strange creatures in front of her. Her body shivered, accepting the new found warmth. Gema stood in line, following the moonies in short steps, waiting with strength and humility. Because, just like us, my dear reader, she was the master of her dreams and her time belonged to only herself.

Gema knew exactly what to ask, and what to give in exchange.

FIND WHAT YOU LOVE AND LET IT KILL YOU

By Erin Miller At the tail end of sixth grade, my dad brought home a beautiful used guitar for me to play. It was love at first sight, plain and simple. I have always loved music; I grew up wanting to be a rock star, singing my lungs out in the shower, and learning whatever instrument I could get my hands on. But this was different. I immediately felt a connection to this instrument, I picked it up and I felt home.

This was a strange feeling for me, because I hadn’t really felt alive or happy or even relatively okay for, at that point, around three years. Growing up poor, losing two houses, and moving to a trailer park in the middle of nowhere will do that to you. So, I was depressed. But learning the guitar made me feel the electricity that is associated with being alive.

It was Charles Bukowski who wrote, “My dear, find what you love and let it kill you.” I had every intention of doing that. I practiced for hours on end, repeating the same riff, the same chord structures, the same strumming patterns until I could do them in my sleep. Although I was getting better at singing and playing guitar, my situation in life was growing increasingly worse.

I was at the lowest I had ever been in my whole entire life when I was in the eighth grade. I wasn’t eating, both because I didn’t think I deserved to and because my family couldn’t afford food, my grades were slipping in most of my classes, I wasn’t sleeping, and my family was at war with each other screaming down the halls, or over the phone. There wasn’t a second of peace, but for me, there was a release.

That release was the music that I would make. The only thing that would get me through the day was the fact that I knew I would get to play more tomorrow. I even made a guitar pick necklace with the first pick I ever used to remind myself that I needed to carry on. Music had gotten me this far, ending it now would be letting it down. I know, this sounds kind of crazy, but music became real to me, like an old friend.

Finding this thing that made me feel like I wasn’t completely worthless was definitely what saved me.

Music is what I love, and by accepting the joy that playing gave me, I was starting to realize that the old parts of me, the parts that were hateful and small, started to die off. Although I felt alone, and that I couldn’t do it, I now had something to lean on and to run to when the weight got too heavy. Everyone needs this thing in their life, because most people aren’t going to make it alone. It’s like when you’re little on the playground and you trip and skin your knee, you’re perfectly capable of standing back up, but sometimes you need someone to offer you a helping hand to get you to that point. Passions will push people to defy even the most horrible circumstances, and they’ll follow those people through their lives and keep them from stopping before they’ve even begun.

“My dear, Find what you love and let it kill you.

Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.

Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.

For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover.”

Charles Bukowski

PEREGRINE

By Angela Dizon

What makes me feel small and undone is how second-rate I felt when I was younger. Remembering that past self makes me feel weak. I wasn’t born with insecurity but it struck me when I was five, my family moved to America, and everything was new and exciting. It was an adventure wherein I lost sight of myself although, really, I’m not sure what else would materialize from a confused little kid.

People aren’t born thinking they’re trash. For a while I had great conviction in myself—confidence—which I internalized when I saw it kept people from liking me. My personality was off-putting; I was creative when it didn’t matter and blank when it did, I had undiagnosed ADHD and shame about being not being white, I lacked tact, anything other than discount sweats—and above all I did everything wrong because I was all wrong.

I developed an ideal, someone blonde and white, like a particular girl in my kindergarten class. She was perfect: competent, socially tactful, and everything was meant to look good on her. She actively made me feel small and I perpetuated that feeling by believing her. I was never born ideal. I was an ugly Filipina with crushing self-doubt. I couldn’t function without obsessing over how I presented myself.

I was low-key and conformist while being assertively defensive whenever anyone tried to place me into a mold. Particularly, I avoided being lumped into the Asian stereotype. I strived to be an individual, but an understated and white individual, so I wouldn’t stand out again in a bad way.

Whitewashing yourself in a mostly white community isn’t a big deal anyway; it’s fitting in. I stopped fluidly speaking Tagalog and my little sisters avoided calling me Ate in public. I kept my skin fair, snubbed my own culture—it was stupid. Being Asian equates to being a caricature and I am more than an aptitude for math, a taste for rice, and dreams of being a nurse or a doctor. Dear god I am an individual—as if that was ever particular to being white.

Aside from a few jokes and vaguely intrusive questions, no one treated me too dif-

ferently anyway but I still felt different. People were naturally curious and I was too eager to prove “I’m not like other Asians.” As they got to know me, inane questions dropped, and it became a known fact that “Angela’s just really white.” Thanks. There was freedom in that.

My internalized racism was a buzz that droned for years. I trivialized my heritage and put the western world on a pedestal. There’s enough distance between me and my background that I still forget it’s a part of me. Until recently I found it nice rather than trite when people say I’m bad at being Asian. I’m not sure what happened to change that.

In the past year, I read up on the experiences of marginalized people and educated myself on racism, sexism, etc. I wanted to be aware, and in the process, I began to unlearn a lot of bad habits that made me hate myself. It’s a simple concept, but finally believing that I am not innately inferior was great. I didn’t feel burdened to be Filipino.

My ethnicity was seldom ever a big deal to anyone other than myself. My non-white experience has never been terrible and I don’t think it ever will be. I’m fortunate; the worse thing I remember experiencing was when my white sorta-boyfriend told me that we couldn’t go to Prom together. He texted me something like, “Omg my mom wants me to go to prom with a white girl ._. [...] I know it’s defeatist but it’s something I can’t argue since she’s paying for tickets.” It was the stupidest thing I heard in a long time so initially it felt like nothing. I was incredulous. Was he so bad with money that he couldn’t pay for Prom himself ? I couldn’t take it seriously. Then my heart sank and I couldn’t think of anything except our situation.

I remember thinking, “Fuck, I can’t study for my Calculus test since I’m compulsively thinking about this.” It was idiotic. I never felt more trivialized. I’d never even met his mom. I felt like a small little girl in kindergarten being outed for being different. I felt that I was too sensitive. It felt like a burden to be Filipino. For a moment, I thought, “I’m not that Asian,” but I never said it, realizing that my ethnicity was never the problem. In anger, I embraced that part of me. I felt defensive about it. Being Filipino is an integral part of me that neither makes or breaks who I am.

That small, and frankly stupid, situation reminded me that this isn’t post-racist America. Casual racism exists in daily life and, however small, are microaggressions that regard people for less than they are. What happened to me is a fraction of how bad it gets.

My sorta-boyfriend was sensitive to an extent but the situation shot my comfort level down. I tried to articulate how I felt. He didn’t seem to understand enough and I didn’t want to bother him with my feelings. I was bothered by how weak and small I felt. I shut down and the relationship died down.

It wasn’t right that I felt small. I felt that I had to be stronger. I was a little nauseous over my non-whiteness, like I was damned to be in a particular place in society (because I sort of am)—but I don’t have to accept that.

In that realization, I never felt so old. It felt like maturity: finally standing by myself, completely. It felt new. Anything racist angered me like it never did before. I became more eager to assert and defend the humanity of people of color. There are greater struggles I’ll never know. However removed they are from my daily life, I began to care about them. I am no longer sheltered to my self-centered view on race. I’m past being insecure and afraid to be myself.

I felt like a real human being when I began to legitimately care about other people. I am no longer small or self-centered. I’m growing to be a bigger person, embracing myself and other people ***

RULES WERE MADE TO BE BROKEN

By Vandana Isabelle It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But adolescence can certainly feel that way.

People tell you that your teen years are the best ones of your life, but what they often don’t tell you is that they may also contain some of the lowest lows you’ve ever felt. People also tend to view adolescence as a singular sort of phase that’s completely separated from childhood and adulthood, but I’ve found that that isn’t completely true either.

When I began writing this piece, I thought I had a definite direction I wanted to go in, that I could clearly express my view of adolescence without too much difficulty. However, that proved to be a bit of a challenge; I restarted this piece a total of 11 times before finally coming to this point. I never realized how hard it would be to talk about adolescence as a sort of objective thing, and I only saw once I started writing how complex the entire experience is. Adolescence can be a really difficult thing to go through, but why?

Is it because people constantly minimize what we see as “typical teenage problems,” saying that they ultimately won’t matter? Could it be because kids are often unprepared for what adolescence brings, not knowing what they could face and how to deal with it? Or could it just be that people try too hard to simplify adolescence when, in reality, it seems to be a rather abstract time period that means a lot of different things to a lot of people?

It seems that the answer would be a combination of all three factors--to put it simply, being a teenager isn’t easy. And a lot of people tend to forget that. It seems that the greatest pain of adolescence comes from the fact that you’re forced to go through it, whether you like it or not.

It took me a long time to figure out what exactly I wanted to say to the other teenagers reading this piece. I mean, it’s not like I could tell them a lot that they didn’t already know--they know better than anyone that there are some scary things that come to light when you’re pushed onto the path to adulthood. Additionally, I’m only sixteen years old myself, and I’m certain that there are things I have yet to learn about being a teenager-and eventually, an “adult”-- myself. Eventually, I realized that, despite still being a teenager, there are things I’ve learned over the years that I wish I could go back and share

with my younger self. Below are some of the most important ones: 1. I don’t care what people say, being a teenager can be scary. Like, really scary.

Throughout my entire life, I’ve noticed that people often romanticize what being a teenager is like. We’re often exposed to portrayals of adolescence that make it seem like nothing but non-stop fun, adventure, romance...essentially, like being a teenager is one of the best things that could ever happen to you. And it took me a while to figure out that this may not exactly be the case--don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of things that are exciting and fun about being a teenager. But what people often forget is that being a teenager can also get pretty intense at times. Between breakups, conflicts with friends, the pressure to maintain high grades, and every struggle in between, the world puts some rough stuff on teenagers and expects them to just be able to take it. To add insult to injury, when teenagers are overwhelmed by the issues they face, the adults in their lives simply brush it off, saying that their problems won’t matter in five, ten, or fifteen years.

They take the easy way out, asking teenagers to look at them as an example of how it’ll all turn out okay, instead of trying to give teenagers assurance and support in the phase they’re actually in. When you really think about it, teenagers really get the short end of the stick--society sets them up to experience this greatly romanticized coming-of-age and then shrugs its shoulders at them when they find that it isn’t that easy.

2. Being a teenager isn’t really a defined phase--it’s an abstract midpoint between “child” and “adult,” occasionally closer to one side of the spectrum than the other.

I think this one speaks for itself, so I’m going to keep it short: sometimes, you’ll want to carry all the responsibility offered to you to prove that you’re old enough to handle it and that you’re a capable young adult. However, things may get rough along the way, and there may be moments when all you want to do is revert to your 3-year old self.

You know, the version of you who could cry for your mother and have her be there in an instant to comfort you, offer you a snack, and tuck you in for a nap. Other times, you’ll have to accept responsibility that you don’t necessarily want to shoulder, instead feeling obligated to carry it for whatever reason: to do what’s best for others around you, to make things better in the long run, to do what’s expected of you. These are the moments

when it’ll become apparent that opting out isn’t really an option, that there’s no where for you to run and forget about things for a while. When I turned thirteen, I expected that I would suddenly feel like an invincible teenager with teenage responsibilities, but now, at sixteen, I’ve learned that things don’t quite pan out that way. I’ve found that, for me, there isn’t really such a thing as “feeling like a teenager”--instead, I feel more like a pendulum swinging between childhood and adulthood, trying to find a balance.

3. Sometimes, you’ll have to deal with things you’ve never dealt with before, and you’ll have to do so on the fly.

Let’s say you’re walking around your house one morning, still half-asleep. You walk down your hallway, traversing the same path that you always do on your way to the kitchen. Suddenly, you feel your hip colliding with something. You turn just in time to see the end table you’ve bumped, the prized vase that usually sits atop it sailing to the ground.

Eyes widened, you reach out, arms flailing, as you try and grab for the vase before it hits the ground.

This could end one of two ways. You can either catch the vase and set it back on the table with no damage other than a bit of a rude awakening, or you might just barely miss the vase, watching helplessly as it shatters into pieces all over the ground, leaving behind a mess for you to clean up. However, it’s unlikely that you’ll just let the vase fall--you’ll act as quickly as possible and do your best to avoid disaster on short notice.

This, I’ve found, seems to be the same process I go through when I have to deal with something particularly important. Whether it’s trying to handle new responsibility, guiding someone through a particularly bad panic attack, or just trying to keep it together when a close friend recounts the details of a difficult experience, it seems that trying to maintain control and keep the peace is a job that quickly falls to whoever is around, regardless of whether or not they know how to. Whenever that job falls to me, I’ve found that I don’t really know how I can do what’s best for the person who needs my help or even what is best--all I know is that they need me and I want to help them.

Sometimes, all you can do is be there for someone, but that can be scary when the person you’re trying to help is going through something that neither of you have ever encountered before. However, when it’s over, you’ll be stronger for it, and you’ll be better prepared for what might come next.

4. It’s good to take a step back and give yourself a moment to process things.

One of the most difficult things about adolescence is how rushed everything can feel. You have to get good grades so you can prepare yourself for a future that might seem kind of murky and confusing, you have to make lots of friends so you can look back on your teen years and think about all the memories you have with them the way your parents do now, you might even feel pressure to delve into romantic relationships so you’ll have some experience before going into the “real world.” All of these things seem to serve as preparation for the future in some way, somehow offering fulfillment beyond your teen years, which also means that you might feel great amounts of pressure to try and make all of them happen. It’s difficult to juggle so many things all at once, especially things that can be so important. I’ve learned that it’s often best to allow yourself some time to take these things at your own pace and to take a break when it gets to be too much. This may not always be possible (especially when it comes to things like school), but when it is, it’s good to capitalize on it.

5. No one really has all the answers.

Within the past few years, I’ve met lots of teenagers who seem invincible. When I look at them, I immediately think that they have it easy, that they’ve got their lives figured out in a way I never have, that they have a path that they know they’re going to follow. However, I’ve learned that you can never make assumptions about other people that way--whether these people are your age or not, no matter how composed and collected they look, they have their own problems and struggles that they have to deal with too. It’s easy for teenagers to look at other people and immediately feel inadequate next to their image; they immediately assume that these people are better at living life than they are, that they are infinitely more powerful and confident and self-assured. We tend to forget that we can’t see what goes on behind the scenes, and that the people we admire for their “easy” lives may be dealing with the same issues that we deal with ourselves. Additionally, people forget that this behavior goes both ways--the people who we admire for how effortlessly they go about their lives may be surprised at the impression they’ve made on others, certain that their struggles were much more obvious than they really were.

This sort of cycle is only exacerbated by the fact that many teenagers are constantly the victims of thoughtless comparison--that is, their parents or teachers may compare them

to their peers in order to motivate them to behave the same way (I’ve been told by my parents countless times that I should study as much as ___ does, that I should dress the way ___ does, or that I should present myself the way ___ does). Not only is this action performed out of ignorance (after all, how are those people supposed to know what the people you’re being compared to actually experience?), it tends to do more harm than good, leaving kids feeling bad about themselves for not adhering to behaviors that the very people they’re supposed to model themselves after don’t always exhibit. You can’t always stop people from making comparisons like these or yourself from acting based on preconceived notions about another person, but what you can do is try and remember that no one really has it all, and it’s not fair for you to beat yourself up over it.

6. You’re a lot stronger than you think you are.

Among all of the injustices society commits to teenagers is the fact that they severely undermine what they’re capable of. Adolescence is a time when problems can suddenly become a lot more tangible than you ever expected them to be, when you may doubt whether or not you’ll ever feel like an “adult” the way you were promised ever since you were little, when you might wonder how much more of this you’ll be able to take. In other words, teenagers have to put up with a lot more than anyone ever gives them credit for. People are quick to dismiss the strength that teenagers obviously have to possess in order to make it through all of the new challenges they’re met with, telling themselves that adolescence is something everyone has to deal with, instead of trying to find solidarity with teenagers in the fact that all of the problems can feel insurmountable. If anyone dismisses the things you’ve overcome by deeming them juvenile, remember that you have strength they can’t see, that you’re the only one who’s gotten you this far, that you have your own victories--and maybe a few battle scars--to show for it. If anyone has the gall to undermine that sort of power, they don’t deserve another minute of your time.

7. You’re going to learn a lot of things that you can carry with you for a long time.

You’ll be even stronger for it.

This one is another self-explanatory one, so I won’t dwell on it for too long--one of the defining characteristics of my time as a teenager has been the fact that I’ve learned

a lot about people, about the world, and about myself. Sometimes, these lessons may make the future seem bleak, but other times, you’ll find hidden opportunities to celebrate how far you’ve come and how well you’ve handled some of the grimness that accompanies growing up. And these little moments of celebration will help show you that you can handle the things life throws at you and come out even stronger for them.

I know that the bad moments can feel discouraging, but hanging in there for the good moments can be so, so worth it.

I know there’s still a lot left for me to learn about being a teenager and eventually an adult, but I definitely feel more ready to face those things given the lessons imparted to me over the past few years. I’m sure that this list is in no way conclusive of all of the things you might learn as a teenager--in fact, it’s incredibly inconclusive compared to the wealth of experience teenagers all over the world have shared. Still, I hope these little lessons have proved helpful in some way and that you enjoyed them. Thanks for taking the time to read all of this, and I’ll see you next time.

By Paxton Charles

ADOLESCENCE most days are rough some stormy and cold, but most blank and unforgiving not quite terrible, but numb and unpleasant like a hollow, weak version of the world childhood seemed to be so full of life, vibrant, spectacular a storm came long ago and it hasn’t slowed

COPING I’ve bought an umbrella and carefully drape a blanket around my cold and aching bones the storm is fierce but I know now how to protect this miserable body day by day it grows warmer and stronger sometimes I still get rain in my eyes streaming down my shirt, soaking my shoes the storm is relentless but I know now how to pick up the pieces and hold my own against the ice

SURVIVING I have gotten used to the cold made my peace with the fact it is here to stay as certain as the movements of the stars and though my toes are still icy I thank my heart often for pumping warm, red blood for always reminding me I am alive a happy remnant of better times, and my reason for believing that ahead are happier moments still that even in this storm I wait with hope I hold on

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: IRL FUCK-UPS The Vampire Boyfriend

By Andy Corrêa It started out all wrong.

First rule of dating: don’t date anyone that buys you a whole LITER of alcoholic beverage and leaves you to drink it alone so they can talk to their friends about other girls when you two are supposed to be on a date.

Second rule of dating: if there’s a slight chance of heavy drinking, do not wear all white.

I don’t own the pants anymore, the shirt ended up my painting uniform and the Chuck Taylors are now cream colored. We don’t talk about the fate of the coat.

He was super nice at first. Bought me chocolate, kissed me lots, listened to what I had to say, called my art pretty. Then, there was a shift. He still bought me chocolate, but I noticed he mostly did it to get me to forgive him. He still kissed me, but mostly when I tried to talk to him about where he thought our relationship was going or something equally important, to shut me up. He still listened to what I said, or rather pretended.

He still called my art pretty, but I started it was in a dismissive, ‘I did not look at it at all’ way. And at night, when we slept together, he’d either coerce me into doing things I didn’t want to (but I did because I still thought I had to keep him happy through hell and high water), and when I managed to get the upper hand, I’d wake up to him doing what he wanted to me while I slept.

When we met, I thought he was nice, cute and funny. He was nice, but only in front of other people. He was cute, but no external beauty ever outweighed internal rot. He was funny, if you didn’t love yourself and found rape, ableist and racist jokes funny.

On the first year anniversary, he took me to a bar, to see a band he liked. He knew I hated crowds, and that I hated closed spaces, and that I disliked Creedence Clearwater Revival with a passion, so he took me to see a cover band of that, in a tiny bar, with more people in than it could legally hold.

I didn’t know what I was doing anymore by that point; where did I end and he begun? I spent more time at his house than I ever did at my own parents’. I drank more in

one month that year than I ever did before. We fought a lot, over everything: the state of his room, his rummaging through my stuff, about why did he order me to go without internet in the middle of midterms, why couldn’t I go home? One day I snapped, and told him I couldn’t do it anymore, he told me I would never find another guy who was as nice as him. It stung, and it stuck with me. I had self-esteem issues and he knew it; I was ugly, fat, full of scars, always sick, and whoever the fuck else would want a broken toy? I was so sidelined by self-inflicted (or not so self inflicted) mental pain that I forgot I was going to break up with him. Who would want a fucked up thing, anyway? He must’ve been a saint to put up with me.

On the second year anniversary, he held a party in his house. No one knew why he threw a party. No one congratulated me on holding a relationship with him for 2 years and not going batshit insane. I drank an entire bottle of cheap vodka alone to forget that this party wasn’t for the two of us, and didn’t eat anything, and all I remember of that night is being tripped on his bed and being told to strip.

One day, I was sick. I had double pneumonia, which is pneumonia on both lungs, for the ones who are unfamiliar with lung diseases. It was a cold day of the same year it snowed in here. It doesn’t actually snows in my city. I asked him to pick me up. He told me he was busy and that I would have to pick the bus. I was an emotionally destroyed drone by then; I agreed. I didn’t grab a thicker coat nor an umbrella, because he didn’t warn me it was fucking pouring where he lives. I got there soaked and shivering, and had to borrow his sister’s clothes while mine dried. When I got there, his sister asked me why hadn’t I asked to be picked up, since he had his butt glued to the sofa watching The Simpsons since four that afternoon. I told her I did, and I was left feeling like of all the things he did to me (even rape), lying about wanting to watch a cartoon was the worst offense. I let it slide, but the mirror was already broken.

He went out with his friends more than he told me about, I started noticing. It was around the same time I restarted using facebook, because half our friends could only be reached through there. There were pics from parties I’ve never heard about. There were talks about shows he never told me he went to. Not that I cared, but he policed my every movement and almost hit me when I said I was going to a 3OH!3 concert the next MONTH, so I expected at least the same courtesy of knowledge. I noticed throughout the pictures that this girl, a mutual friend, was always at his left. Knowing him for almost three years like I did, I came to jokingly refer to his left arm as the ‘girlfriend arm’, because he was always at the left end of pictures, with his friends to his right. Most of his female friends stood by his right, as well, but that one was on his left. I thought I was being

paranoid.

I knew he was lying to me about not doing drugs. I also knew that in the first six months we dated, he was clean. I lived across the street from a drug dealer, I knew the difference between oregano and pot, and between salt and cocaine (mainly because salt would never fall on the borders of a semi-perfect straight line). I let it slide. The mirror just kept cracking so much it was missing pieces.

June, 12th is Valentine’s Day in Brazil. Actually it’s St Anthony’s Day, the matchmaking saint. I was sick again. I’m always sick, though sometimes I’m worse for wear.

That pneumonia I had, it hadn’t healed over, left a lung scarring worthy of an old-timey smoker (I had quit cold turkey after smoking for eight months), and had come back with a vengeance. I was taking enough medicine that a passerby might think I was sick with AIDS instead of an asthma crisis, a rhinitis and sinusitis combo crisis and a real shitty double pneumonia. He told me he couldn’t come to my house, why couldn’t I come over to his? It was so much more practical to him. Those were his actual words. I snapped. I tell him I can’t get out of the sofa I’m sitting on, from my vantage point in front of the fireplace without keeling over coughing, nearly having a respiratory arrest, and he says I’m the one who has to go somewhere cold and, to be honest, completely unappealing for Valentine’s day, the day you’re supposed to show how much you care about someone?

As I was arguing with him via facebook, I realized it. I’m the one who didn’t get it all along. He doesn’t care about me. He just needed someone else to take the blame if he didn’t take care of himself. The moment I typed ‘it’s over, get the fuck out of my life’, I felt as if a hand had released my throat. I was crying over the realization he was in love with himself so much he didn’t see me, but I was feeling the beginnings of a happiness I hadn’t felt since I was six and I was told by my entire class I was a freak cross-dresser.

I tried being friends with him instead. It only served to cement the fact he was a self-obsessed chauvinist boy. Let’s not tarnish the reputation of pigs; they’re intelligent, caring and lovable creatures who would never do what this bacteria of a person did. As unwanted gifts and letters with pleadings came to my door more and more often (and the letters became increasingly more and more self-centered, aiming to paint him as a victim), I made a decision.

I forgot it the next day. But at the same time, I was acutely aware of everyone’s gender. Girls made me wary, boys registered as a rabid bear; I only ever felt safe talking to non-binary people, and I actually checked. I became more and more immersed into roleplaying, getting to the point where I didn’t know where my character ended and where

I begun. I fell into a depressive slope. My father noticed, and coerced me into telling him my ex had raped me repeatedly for almost three years. He blamed me. But he also reminded himself of all the stalking my ex was doing. He took me to the police.

The moment I signed that restriction order was the happiest day so far.

My name is Andy, I’m 23 years old, and so far in my life I managed to trust about as many people as I have fingers and even am going to a male therapist. I still have panic attacks when guys touch me, but I’m no longer distrustful of girls. I changed my number and burned pictures and I still can’t see his name or pictures without crying. I found out he was cheating on me. I’m taking anti-psychotics. I’m drawing and writing again. I started smoking again. It’s a roller-coaster of ups and downs, but swift, smooth recovery is a utopia.

Though this week I finally used the word ‘happy’ to describe myself and was surprised to find out that I meant it.

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ON ISLAMOPHOBIA, WEARING THE HIJAB AND FINDING MYSELF:

By Nadjah

I started wearing the hijab when I was 17. It was in early September, my parents didn’t know I was going to wear it that day, and frankly neither did I. I’m a very spontaneous person in general, I admit it was something that I had been thinking about for a while: what if I wear the hijab, what will change in my life, how will I change as a person and also how will it change how other perceive me in a world where islamophobia is becoming the norm in mainstream medias. I think what I wanted was to feel a stronger bond with the Muslim community all around the world due to the oppression that is happening constantly.

So that morning of September, when I went out with my father to get groceries, I just decided to wear a headscarf and that was it, no fussing, no making a big deal of it, I just did it. I think the look on my father’s face was absolutely hilarious though, he really wasn’t expecting it! Truthfully, I think that day is the moment where I can divide my life in two different steps, even if I was the same person before and after wearing, I think it’s that day when I truly feel I started to grow as a person and that I weirdly gained a lot of confidence in who I am and who I want to be. Even if I was only 17, it’s the day when I feel I (kinda) became an adult.

Now I’m 19, and I honestly look fondly on the last two years of my life, I feel like I’ve grown up so much and took a lot of wrong turns and then right turns and I finally feel like I have my life in control, mostly because I believe in myself.

A lot. I always had this weird brand of pretentiousness mixed with a weird low/ high self esteem but lately, it has been mostly on the ‘high self esteem’ side. Before wearing the hijab, I always had my hair in my face, not quite looking at the world and the people in it and hiding a lot from everyone. To be honest, one of the first

thing I said after wearing the hijab was : wooaaah I see the world now ! (lots of sighs from my father) I met a lot of new people and did a lot of new things and I always seemed to challenge their view of what a muslim girl is (oppressed, meek, weak, etc. etc. ) and that muslim girls are just as different from one another than any other person can be.

Personally I am a very outgoing person, I love speaking with people and sharing opinions and I love art and I love creating and I love food and I love kdramas and kpop. I love clothes a lot too, it was weirdly one of my favourite things when I started wearing the hijab, because I didn’t have a lot of interest for fashion before that, but now I had to think about what to wear so it could be hijab-friendly and also pretty and what kind of colour palette I should use for each of my outfits (yes I plan my outfits using colour palettes and it’s so fun tbh) Even though, everything feels peaceful when I think about my personal life and the people I know regarding the hijab, once you start thinking about how it’s going in the world, it starts to feel very difficult and a bit hard to bear. Not the hijab, not the fat that I am muslim but how the western medias portray us and how sometimes strangers will come up to you and insult you or start arguments with you about Islam and religion. It’s very difficult especially when it’s pseudo intellectual white atheists. Because their arguments make absolutely no sense ever but they are so confident in their bigotry and so confident that they aren’t being racists or islamophobic, they are just saying the facts like they are.

It becomes especially hard when something happens and people are so quick to say that muslims are terrorist/violent/etc./etc... As muslims, we’ve been living in this kind of general atmosphere for more than a decade now and truly, I think it’s been too long and it should end soon because truly we are in 2015 now!

Nonetheless, life goes on and we should all try our best to live a good life and to live a life that we are proud of, I hope that this year will be a year when I will live new experiences and that I will grow as a person. This year is finally the year when I’m going to start studying what I want to do later and I hope everything will turn out well for everyone of us.

GROWING UP IN 7 MOVEMENTS

By Bridget Conway

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When I was younger, I was terribly impressionable, a blank canvas if you will. Of course everyone is, but I have the feeling most people cared more about what was painted then I did. I assumed everything about myself; sexuality, gender identity, what types of foods I liked, everything, without any introspection or care for what I actually felt. I avoided femininity at all costs; two brothers and exposure to mainstream media implanted the idea that it was weak and useless. I avoided wearing skirts and makeup until only about a year ago, until then. Since then, I’ve come to realize that a) gender is way more complicated than that; I feel comfortable in my assigned gender, but I also don’t feel like anything can, or should be simply masculine or feminine, but rather a combination. I like skirts and red lipstick and ballet, but I also love traditionally masculine things; woodworking, hiking, menswear inspired fashion. I think assigning gender to anything is ridiculous and restrictive, and balance between masculine and feminine energies is necessary for my happiness. It’s come to be part of who I am, and I’m grateful to know this about myself.

Along with introspection about gender comes introspection about femininity, and therefore, feminism.

When I was younger, I was never exposed to social issues, and I simply believed that everybody should be equal without understanding the true inequalities that need to be eliminated before equality is achieved. With age comes not just knowledge and insight, but a more realistic view as to what both the world and ourselves look like. Reality is awful, but the ignorance that comes with innocence is worse. Now I’m an active intersectional feminist, but five years ago, I wouldn’t have seen the need for action.

Discovering major things like this have impacted me, but so have seemingly lesser things like music.

Music is a highly interactive art form, and as a lover and consumer of most types of art, I see it as both a reflection and something that changes us. Music for me is both social and private, enhancing relationships between my friends and family and my relationship with myself.

I’m still in high school; I’m continuously changing and evolving and will continue to do so. I’ve learned so much and would never want to revert back to my previous self.

I’m sure I’ll think the same in another 5 years. That’s the beauty of growing up, I think, is that we have the chance to know and experience so much, change and evolve within a lifetime. And it’s incredible.

MUSICAL JOURNEY: Dickhead Dilemma

By Mayu

We often disregard the difficulties and hardships of playing an instrument. So witnessing others picking and dropping instruments is not uncommon.

For some, the musical journey starts in the womb. Coined by the University of California scientists in 1993, the Mozart Effect claims intelligence temporarily. The research sparked soon-to-be mothers to purchase Mozart CD for the unborn child! They believed listening to classical music, especially Mozart, reduced the chance of health and mental problems. Then there are parents who force, or as they say encourage, their child to a Suzuki method, a long and arduous road for the classically trained. But I did not have those lives. I played a recorder in elementary school.

Sixth grade was the start of my musical journey. In most schools in the United States, sixth graders are given the choices of joining choir, band, and/ or orchestra. I joined orchestra to play the violin merely because my friends did just that.

One of my eighth grade teachers (who reeked pedo vibe) once told me, “You know the friends you hang out with now? They’re all going to change. High school is a big place.” Now, I do not know if that is exactly what he said, but you get the gist. The best friends I have had, the ones I have joined orchestra for, both slowly, but surely, disappeared out of my life. The one person from middle school who I can call a best friend is Johnae Spain. Although I have no recollection of her in sixth or seventh grade, we have had similar groups of friends since fifth grade. The quartet in eighth grade improved me as a violinist, as well as reinforced our friendship.

Describing my orchestra teacher weird is an understatement. Mr. D is whimsical, awkward, annoying, and motivated. He embodies a manchild. I hate him.

The magnitude of Mr. D’s impacts differs by students. Spain practically praises Mr. D. Although she admits to his elementary style teaching, she cannot neglect his empty efforts. Their friendship correlates to her leniency.

“In middle school orchestra, I didn’t really have friends in that class, and I talked to Mr. D a lot. He was really open and nice to me, not condescending like most teachers,” says Spain.

The most important attribute of a teacher is the ability to teach well. Unlike Spain, I cannot freely give credit where the credit is not even due. Whenever report cards roll around, I expect a blank on the orchestra section since Mr. D rarely updates grades.

Not only that, his lack of organizational skills deeply affect orchestra. The playing tests, where each student plays a section of a particular piece, are almost always planned a day prior. That does not give enough time for students to practice. Furthermore, favoring advanced players does not help, at all.

That being said, the exposure to classical music opened the non-mainstream-musicexist gate. Since I come from a tone-deaf-I-have-no-interest-in-music family, I did not grow up listening to music as a child. I have Mr. D and the internet to thank for that.

And you know what? Young me would have quit orchestra from all of this bullshit. So I guess this means I grew up, right?

FITTING IN AND MAKING FRIENDS

By Remi Riordan

Me, being a 15 year old girl, fitting in had been a goal all through out middle school. It was the way to make friends. Individuality was not cool or a popular concept. At the time I didn’t see a problem with this. But, as I began to mature and reached 8th grade I realized how stupid this was. Abercrombie and Delias filled the hallways. Every girl straightened their hair and parted it too far to one side. This was the worst time in my school career (so far). Not only was fitting in my top priority, but these were the three years everyone decided to be mean to each other. It was like they put all the hormonal, preteens in a building together and told us all to fend for ourselves. I still don’t get why everyone was so mean but I feel as if it was a defense mechanism. We were all going through puberty and relationships became important to us, even if they only lasted a week. This caused me to go through many different friends. I was friends with the girls who had boyfriends in 6th grade to the girls who still acted as if boys were aliens to them. Although I went through so many different friends, I did end up finding a really genuine group of girls by the 8th grade. They happened to enjoy many of the things I did. We always hung out together but it wasn’t like a clique. We just couldn’t stand the other kids in our school who seemed so plain in our eyes. After those three horrible years, I finally made it out. My friends and I all ended up going to the public high school together except for my best friend who was forced to go to an all girls catholic school.

I know it seems ridiculous that high school would be so much different than middle school but it really is. For me at least it has been, living in a large New Jersey suburb located close to New York City. My town is very unique to the area, many famous “New Yorkers” actually live in my town. There are concert spaces, independent movie theaters, film festivals, and three town centers. Because my town is close to New York City we have many urban influences. But, many of us don’t exactly experience them or look for them until we reach high school. We have three middle schools and they all feed into my high school which consists of 2,000 teens. Because of the large amount of kids, there are so many different, cool people. The social circles range from nerds to pot heads and literally everything in between. So when I arrived on my first day, I was intimidated for obvious reasons. They seemed to really know who they were which

was the very opposite of most of my friends. Some of us had a general idea, what our favorite tv shows were or what stores we liked to shop at. But, we still didn’t know how to answer the difficult question, “What do you want to do with your life?”

The best decision I have made in my freshman year was joining a club called SVPA (School of Visual and Performing Arts). This was the club that put on the plays at my school. I had heard so much about the tech program which was made up of the kids who actually built the sets and did the behind the scenes of the shows. I knew that I needed to join a few clubs to meet new people. I joined the NOW (National Organization for Women) club, the film club, and tech. Tech was the only one I ended up having time to do and I enjoyed it the most. This probably had something to do with the fact that I love fashion and I knew there was a costumes crew. I had to show up twice a week and work hard to get onto the show. I ended up getting on for all three shows. The kids in the program are (in my opinion) the coolest kids. They refuse to conform to cultural norms. They embrace individuality and love the same things that I always have. It felt like a match made in heaven for me and my other friends who had joined. But, it couldn’t have been more intimidating. The upperclassmen already had their friends and we desperately wanted to become one. My best friend and I ended up joining the costumes crew together so we wouldn’t feel too stranded. The feeling of strandedness came from the intensity and largeness of tech and being without a friend seemed scary to us. Although these kids were only a year or two older than us we happened to idolize them because we found them to be so special.

My experience with tech has been such a wonderful change from middle school.

The intimidation also feels very different, in middle school it was painful kind. The way you would feel if someone cornered you but with tech it was just the mixture of intimidation and admiration. All people will go through the challenges that come with fitting in and making friends and I believe it helps us all grow as individuals. These experiences help us answer the difficult questions about life. I have learned you can’t shy away from those questions because even if you can only answer with general statements it shows you have gone through enough to know. I’ve realized that while being unique in many ways, these kids have managed to find a way to make fitting in a requirement to being their friends. I’m not saying this is a bad thing but in every group of friends there is no way the people can be opposites of each other. The tech kids are really just another social circle and another name for them would be the hipsters or the indie kids. So really, fitting in may always be important to making friends but you don’t need to change to fit in like we all believed in middle school. You just need to squint hard and realize there is always someone out there who is like you.

I MUST DO EVERYTHING PERFECT

By Daria Volyskaya

“I must do everything perfect, I can’t fail” – do you hear this often in your head? If not, you may want to skip this part. And even if you do, you may want to skip this part.

Just do whatever you want.

Being a perfectionist is not essentially a bad thing, in fact, it can be helpful at point in your life. Although the key is not to take everything too far. To make things clear: there are two types of perfectionism – normal and neurotic. The basic difference between them is that the first one is absolutely healthy and it does not compromise your self-esteem. The second one is characterized by setting unrealisting goals and feeling strong dissatisfaction with yourself in the case of failure. Also, it can lead to anxiety, depression, eating disorders etc.

I have never been to a therapist so I don’t claim that I have an acutal neurotic perfectionism, but what I know is that wanting to be the best and not accepting the failure led me to the point where I was afraid only of the thought of making the mistake.

I remember avoiding trying new things, procrastinating, because I knew I would not achieve the goal I set and this is not something I can handle.

Although I have gone through a lot and realised that I can and sometimes I should make mistakes, the fear of failure still haunts me. Even starting this article took me a lot of courage, so you can guess what happens when I have to handle bigger things.

Also, I realise that another side of a problem of me being frightened of failure is that I have not been taught how to handle with it. For example, when I got a bad mark on a test or messed up the piano piece I was supposed to know perfectly, all I saw was dissapointed looks of my teachers and my parents shaking their heads. Nobody told me that it is okay to make mistakes and have weaknesses, so it took me a long time to realise that.

So I figured some kind of mottos that generally make me feel better: 1. YOUR FAILURES DO NOT DETERMINE YOUR SELF-WORTH.

2. Everything is temporary. Everything ends. Time is a great thing and the most amazing feature of it is that it never stops. So now and then you should ask youself: “Would it matter in 20 years?”. Chances are, the answer is going to be “no”.

3. Think what a great story it would make.

4. Mistakes and losings make you who you are, no matter how cheesy it sounds.

And if you screw up continuously, you may get a chance to write a 3000 symbols article about it.

5. You are not a robot. Simple as that. And if you can stand a pop tune, be sure to listen to “I Am Not A Robot” by Marina & The Diamonds.

There are a lot of web pages as well that are written by actual therapists, and if you feel like you need some good advice on how to overcome your strive for perfection, be sure to visit following ones: My personal favourite, the counseling center website, you can find it at: www. counselingcenter.illinois.edu This really good article on how to overcome perfectionism: www.anxietybc.com/sites/default/files/Perfectionism.pdf And a helpful link to recognize it: stress.about.com/od/understandingstress/a/perfectionist.htm If you saw yourself or someone you know in this piece – good luck on your way of learning to cope with your mistakes, and if you feel like you cannot do it on your own or your perfectionism is getting out of control, please be sure to get professional help.

CAN YOUTH BE ENOUGH?

An interview with Mariana, about the fear of growing up and moving on.

By Larissa N.

You feel this huge fear of growing old… What is this fear exactly? What does it makes you feel? How it affects your day?

I believe a part of my fear of getting older is because I like to be seem as someone beyond my age. I enjoy people admiring me for doing things people of my age don’t do. And I feel now that I’m getting older, I receive less recognition, because it’s normal when you get old and become wiser, and this bothers me, it’s one of the parts that bother me the most.

Because when you’re young, you have a completely different vision of things and when you start to getting older, you start to get used to situations that once were magical to you. Even if it’s something stupid. As example, I loved to go out using a fake ID, because I thought it was the biggest fun in the world, and now I don’t feel the same emotion I used to had when I went out with my friends, seems like it lost its beauty. Of course, I still go out with my friends using my real ID, but I thought it was way more fun before, and that’s what I feel I’m losing and while I get older, more often I’m losing things like that.

How this phobia influenced your decisions? What was the most difficult decision you made for not want to get old?

I don’t have an example for this, one decision. But I feel it influence a lot the way I perceive the world. My vision and how I interpret people around me, the world, things…

I believe that all of this is heavily influenced by this fear, but one decision… It’s hard to point out a decision I took. I didn’t came to a point where I needed to make a hard decision because of it, but I imagine it’ll happen eventually.

Since when you started to feel like this? There was a moment where this “fear of growing up” get out proportion and became a constant concern about something inevitable?

Actually, it was a gradual process. I don’t remember exactly how, but I read “Lolita” really young, and somehow, that was the point where started my “apprehension” of aging.

Because you have all that image of Lolita - and I never, saw myself particularly as Dolores, even with she’s being, at the same time, my favorite character, if she was someone I knew, I wouldn’t like her-, the image Humber has of her, I thought everything was really magical. And I started to realize I had all of that at that moment (or I still have, I don’t know), but to know all of that would pass eventually, and I guess that was when it began.

And potentially increased when I read “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, I guess this is my reference book,when it really initiated. And even if the book condemn, in certain ways, people who think more about the youth, about the beauty and all the good things of being young, was also what explain to me what I was feeling and even gave me new vision about the subject. And what was supposed to be criticism ended up being my motto.

Your friends feel the same way? You can open up about it with them?

I don’t talk about it with my friends. It’s something more visible on my personal blog, because there’s where I put all my thoughts. But if someone looks carefully the musics I listen, the films I watch, the books I read, they’ll realize it exists. But even my closest friends don’t have idea of the dimension it has on me. About how much of this is a problem. No one cares too much, but I believe it’s because right now I still young.

What would you do to retard the growth / maturity?

This is a question I already thought a lot about. I keep imagining and thinking if I’ll be one of those old ladies who put botox and everything else. Even on internet there’s this whole community of lolitas, nymphets and more, and they kept dressing like children and acting childishly and I don’t like it, I think it’s too fake. Just as I think all of that is fake, I think a person who grow old and keep using all those facilities to not get old, also fake. And I don’t want that. What I exactly like in youth is the fact you don’t need tricks for people to see how young you are. It’s what I fear to lose… That glow you had when you’re young. Everybody had this glow in the youth and it’s a matter of time when it’ll escape., and I even accepted I can’t do nothing about it, what makes me really sad. I don’t want to fake it. I believe I wouldn’t join any intervention.

In which conditions would you accept aging?

I don’t wanna be decadent. I see those ninety year old people, and I don’t see if I wanna get there. I think it’s complicated because I, particularly, have respiratory illness, so, people like this, when they get old, even only fifty years old, things get complicated. I’m worried a lot about it, because at the same time I want to do so many things with my life, I also don’t wanna get old. Getting old doesn’t attract me at all.

Not even with all the knowledge you would acquire?

No. And I’m a person who values a lot knowledge and intelligence, I particularly believe this. And I’m not the person who glamorizes the young death as well, because I see all those tragedies about it. But if you think, as example, about Brigitte Bardot and you see a wonderful picture of her, at her prime, and then you put her name on Google and you’re so “oh, god”... I know this is really superficial, but life is like this: during the most of it, it’ll not give you time enough to deepen on someone, you’ll see the person and even if you say it isn’t superficial, that you can get over your first impression, you’ll think.

There’s any work or author you identify a lot?

I read “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, and I fell in love, and it’s really a book I read religiously. It’s a bible. And the author himself, I read other works of Oscar Wilde and if I could talk to anybody, would be him. He was heavily criticized, everybody would say he was too superficial, and there’s many of his phrases about how money is more important and youth is more important, but I really get him, even when he talks about this. He reaches me. I feel connected to him. More recently, Lana Del Rey, because I think she doesn’t infantilize herself that much, but at the same time I see she also values many of the things I find valuable as well. And it’s cool because when I wanna read something I identify with, I read Wilde, and when I wanna listen something I identify with, I listen to Lana.

This fear of growing up is something that you have already accepted as part of who you’re, or is it something that you try to change? And that feeling is something that you express in some way? Like art, writing ...

I’m on my way to acceptance. I believe it’s when you don’t accept something like this, you become ridiculous to the world, and it’s clear that I care a lot about people’s impressions of me, so I don’t wanna look ridiculous. I work to accept it, I still have time enough

to deal with it. My goal is to accept. And yes, I express myself, I write a lot about it. I’m not poetical, I write short stories, chronicles, I end up creating characters that are my alter egos. I always ponder about this subject when I write. I enjoy write some show stories, and there’s always one character with this characteristic - that is stronger on me, I guess-.

Do you have any quote / phrase for you, reflects how you live?

“How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that -- for that -- I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!”

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, OSCAR WILDE